Last night my wife and I saw comedian Lewis Black do his thing at Salem's Elsinore Theatre. His profanity-laced, darkly-intense, rant-filled brand of humor was strangely healing for us and the other mostly-liberal audience members.
I'm a big fan of Black's appearances on The Daily Show, where it seems a miracle that the top of his head doesn't pop off from the display of steaming outrage. (Click here for a comparatively mild example.)
I was wondering how Black would act during a lengthy stand-up show. Answer: pretty much the same, but more entertainingly. He's adept at handling shout-out comments from the audience. So adept, I quickly resolved to keep my mouth shut lest I find myself on the receiving end of a Lewis Black zinger.
(Though this would have been an honor. Of sorts.)
My main takeaway from the show was this: being a blogger who frequently takes shots at local politicians via Salem Political Snark, after seeing Black blast Trump & Company for the fucking idiots that they are, using that marvelously descriptive word more times in five minutes than I do in five months (publicly, at least), I no longer am going to give a flying shit if some aggrieved denizen of our City Hall considers me a "bombthrower" — a term intended as an insult, but which I've appropriated as a compliment.
Compared to Lewis Black's virtual nonstop detonation of verbal nuclear weaponry against clueless politicians, mostly of the Trumpian variety, because that's who is in power now, my citizen activism outbursts are akin to a tiny firecracker with a wet fuse. Black, of course, is from New York City. People in New York have a much different conversational style than we do here in Oregon.
It seemed pretty clear that Black didn't know much about Salem. But he had quite a bit to say about Portland. He loved the mass transit system there, compared to which Salem's lack of even freaking evening and weekend bus service is a major embarrassment for Oregon's capital city.
If you want another serving of Lewis Black, check out “Democrats Are Psychotic, Republicans Are Idiotic.” (video doesn't embed, so click on the link)
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I didn’t realize that Salem has a comedy club so it’s good to know that and I will keep an eye out for a gentler humorist if such an animal even exists in these ugly times. Even in my “other” liberal life I never found the repeated use of anti-social language particularly entertaining. But such is the nature of different tastes.
Glad you found a respite if only briefly.